Shrinkflation Caused by Bidenflation

Biden is taking a bite out of every thing we buy.

Inflation is also known as a hidden tax. EVERYBODY pays it. So the democrats can "cut taxes on people they want to" but really raise it on everybody with inflation.

Which you have to admit is a genius plan when the primary export of the United States is money.

Some 60% of all printed dollars are overseas, and a quarter of our monetary supply is held by foreign nations for dealing in global exchanges for things like oil.

Being able to inflate our currency is a feature - the bug is allowing corporations to horde the proceeds for the benefit of investors at the expense of employees and consumers.

Democrats screw you all the ways. Republicans screw you in a few. And also so many of them are inept and stupid. Except Trump. He's our only hope at least for now. I pray for him.

Who was it that decoupled us from the gold standard again? Who chopped marginal rates to a third of their post-WW2 rates? Who cut them again and caused the housing crisis in the 2000s? Who cut them again and gave away the farm in 2017?

Republicans screw you in all the ways, and their base are so stupid they talk to themselves about how much they hope they keep getting screwed.

Both parties are hopelessly corrupt, but at least Republicans aren't Marxist. More and more folks like me have learned to hate the uniparty. Trump is an unlikely hero with many flaws, but so far he's the deplorables' only hope. God help us.

True Republicans aren't Marxists, but then neither are Democrats. We have two right-wing corporatists parties, both driving up the debt, both deporting tens of thousand of brown people here while killing others overseas, both in the pockets of big pharma, defense, and tech...

The difference is the Republicans have no moral or ethical compasses anymore, having replaced patriotism with nationalism, and an ideological platform with a fantasy of an autocratic American empire where we're all forced back into their dystopian version of the 1950s.

Gotta love Bidenomics, can't complain. *double meanings intensify*

"Shrinkflation" has been happening for years before Biden. I've been noticing it here and there. Apparently they reached a point where they couldn't or didn't want to shrink stuff any further at the Dollar Tree.

LOL- yeah, the Dollar Tree actually costs more per capita or by unit or whatever than normal thanks to "shrinkflation." That's sort of a different thing because they're not lying about selling you less soap. You can see it very clearly on the shelf. And "shrinkflators" usually aren't lying either, I don't think, in terms of you still get ounces on chips and all that jazz. The problem is INFLATION. Biden is just trying to keep your eyes off the ball.

I alluded to them raising prices at dollar tree. I wasn't calling that shrinkflation. I already understand the difference (and lack of meaningful difference) between inflation and shrinkflation.

Right, right, right - that's why the stock market is at all-time highs and corporations are posting record profits every quarter.

And you just stated the corporations are reaping the benefit and the people are not.

The stock market is up because people keep buying overpriced junk contributing to increased corporate profits, costing the consumer more in sales taxes, and increased wages suck more income taxes from them...and then property values inflate - increased property taxes...I feel like I am missing three or four more ways your income is being raped.

People aren't buying overpriced junk though - consumer spending is flat, and most are buying necessities but paying just as much as they were before with the overpriced junk. Since it's the same amount, but more food-heavy, sales taxes are flat to down as well.

The problem is rampant profiteering - instead of distributing the inflation among the constituencies (investors, employees, customers) corporations have overwhelmingly decided to treat the increase in raw dollars as a bounty to be distributed to investors, and where necessary offset the increase in labor costs with higher prices and lower quantity.

Had the percentage of revenues going toward profit not quadrupled in the past four years, our prices would still be as high as they are today, but wages would have risen in kind.

I believe you are incorrect.

Are you adjusting said profits for inflation or did you forget that part like people like you usually do? You can't just factor in inflation and then ignore it when you want to. And that's not true that those "evil" corporations are raking in record profits. There is a point where if they sell items for too much they lose everything essentially. That's the effects of competition moving in. And said competition also causes downsizing which is also unfortunate but NECESSARY.

You are just showing off that you don't see the whole picture here.

Even adjusted for inflation they are still record, and during the last 4 years those profits have driven more than four times the price growth as they did in the prior 40.

The cancer has reached the terminal state - companies no longer interested in building things to last, but rather how quickly and easily the capital slot machine will pay out its jackpot, so when inflation hits, investors reap the "extra dollars", products shrink, and wages stagnate, when we should be seeing the difference split between maintaining volume and quantity and COLAs.

Inflation is driven by consumer spending.

Consumer spending increases corporate profits.

Corporate profits increase the company value.

Increased company value increases stock value.

Increased stock value makes the stock market index higher.

So the left liberal socialists are making the capitalists richer 😄

And their lord and savior JRB, Jr. has led them to this promised land of owning nothing and being happy.

Except they seem too bitter in their remarks to be considered happy.

So he's responsible for the shrinkflation in other countrys aswell, wow, for a senile old man he's pretty powerful

So, your answer is "nobody" is responsible? Is that what you're going with? Or corporations are just evil and want to take 10% of your Kit Kat bars or some other horse sh*t?

Ha ha ha, no. Funny you guys protect the super rich greedy corperations and ceos. How is it they keep getting richer while products get smaller and cost more money.

Would it have anything to do with the Fed printing money at will? Hint hint: That's inflation.

Um, no, that's not inflation. Nor does the Fed print money at will.

There's no doubt that the increase in monetary supply - $4T in the final year of the Trump administration and another $2T over the two subsequent years - led to the peak inflation we experienced last year, but the M2 supply has shrunk by around $920B since July of 2022.

Those are "actually the facts".

So Trump's bad policies had such a delayed effect it took almost four years for them to be felt? Why am I skeptical when it comes to that claim?

The YOY inflation rate jumped by 5.6 points in the 12 months following that $4T expansion, and has fallen every year since.

Perhaps it's because you're not quite as informed as you believe you are?

And what would have been your complaint had that 4T not benefitted the non working masses during the 'demic?

We'd absolutely have been pitched into a decade-long depression with a cascading failure of small and medium-sized businesses had the $6T not materialized over the course of the pandemic. The dollar's elasticity is exactly why it can be used to respond to that kind of global disaster in real-time.

My point was that the effect on inflation was effectively immediate and that we've been slowly contracting the supply for nearly 2 years now.

I disagree with you response.

And there's nothing Biden could've done in his coming up on four years as president to curb any of that? He signed a record number of executive orders when he was installed, didn't he?

Any sophomore in college knows that inflation is caused by either increasing the money supply or scarcity of goods. Printing money to pay for increased government spending and energy policy are the cause of US inflation. Math is racist because Leftists don't like what it proves.

It's a good thing they can continue to take classes after their sophomore years then, so their understanding doesn't remain so sophomoric.

Do you know why inflation is called inflation?

Yes, because the prices get bigger like a balloon being filled with air.

I do so hope we're communicating on the same level now.

Why don't you watch a few videos on hyperinflation? Weimar Republic, Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe. You might learn something. I know, math and history are racist.

I'm positively shocked "inflation has two causes" guy recommends watching YouTube.

Perhaps you could point me to whoever you're regurgitating the "math is racist" line from - I have to imagine that guy's videos are from a really nice truck cab.

"Racism in our curriculums isn't limited to history. It's in math too." Washington Post. A nice truck can cost as much as a Porsche or Mercedes, but I don't know if writers for the Washington Post drive them. Please post the source of your regurgitation on this subject.

That wouldn't work metaphorically because you inflate a balloon with air or helium. You are filling it with something tangible that takes up space. The Fed prints money which is tangible and takes up space. Got it? Profits, on the other hand, and prices for that matter, are intangible, as is absolute value. All those can be set at will and all of those can be rejected. "You want this burger? It's a MILLION dollars." I'm not paying for that burger but some other idiot can.

A balloon will burst if inflated with too much air or helium. The economy will burst if too much money is put into circulation kinda like air or helium. You will end up paying for a loaf of bread with two shopping bags full of cash if inflation gets out of control. And you WILL NOT LIKE IT.

Thank goodness I graduated then.

▶️ "Magnuson 1d, 3 replies

Would it have anything to do with the Fed printing money at will? Hint hint: That's inflation."

My reply was to that ^

This isn't post WWI Germany with France demanding reparations paid, any time, like, the day before yesterday, this is Post Lockdown America, or rather, Planet Earth.

Increased demand coupled with supply chain shortages has caused a rise in prices.

The only impact any increased money flow had at the time was that the Stimulus gave people added money via Stimulus Checks to stimulate spending, which, as we saw, unfortunately worked a little too well.

As the lockdown ended, people, who were a bit shell shocked with the sudden spike in prices and severe shortages during The Great TP Crisis of 2020 (a year that everybody has forgotten who was sitting at the White House during) adding to their sudden loss of income upon losing their jobs, began to make up for lost time and started splurging. A lot.

Problem with shortages is that they don't go away just because people start spending away, so supply and demand being a thing (Capitalism 101, jr yr, here we come!),

(low)Supply + (high)Demand = Inflationary Pressures

Hope this clarifies things!

Lol, nice!

Not likely since the supply has fallen by nearly a trillion dollars over the past two years.

Corporate profits for the 40 years before the pandemic drove somewhere around 11% of price growth and a third of inflation - in 2021 it was responsible for around 60% and in 2023 for around 53%.

Demand greater than supply creates inflation.

The prices rise to slow purchases.

Overconfident consumer spending creates the need to slow purchases further leading to more price increases.

Still the consumers buy.

Still the corporations must slow purchases of inventory, so what now?

Equitable distribution. Smaller amount for the inflated (increased) price.

Still the consumers buy.

What next?

Consumer spending is down. Discretionary spending is down. Core spending on necessary items is through the roof while the companies selling those staples make record profits.

Huh?

Yeah, they've revised the last four months downward, with consumer spending in January down 1.1%. February's initial numbers are an 0.6% increase, but that'll also be revised within a couple weeks.

I don't care about the "pandemic".

You said inflation lowered in direct relation with reduced consumer spending and agreed the two are related.

Which is exactly what you were arguing against in refuting my statement that consumer spending fuels inflation.

I said no such thing.

And inflation has gone down in the same period last I heard.

The two rely on each other.

Yeah, it's all related - pandemic hit, economic activity stalled, fed flooded the market with cash and drop interest rates to 2%, holding the economy aloft during the phase when consumer confidence was shaken by the combination of the virus and unemployment.

Vaccines show up, economy reopens, inflation hits, fed raises rates all the way to 8% while reducing the money supply by nearly $1T, consumer spending flags, inflation subsides, feds start lowering interest rates.

This is what the dollar was designed to do when we pulled it from the gold standard - it's just been prolonged by the fact that the increase in raw dollars has largely coalesced into the hands of investors instead of raising the tide for investors, employees, and consumers.

You said earlier inflation is down.

Your this comment states consumer spending is down for the same period.

The two are connected.

The "connection" is a direct relationship between the two.

Connected yes, a direct relation between the two, no.

Inflation can easily track northward with flat consumer spending, wages, and supply if companies continually increase prices to drive their stock prices up.

If those companies provide a good or service required to bring others to the market, such as oil, the inflation just compounds at each step of the supply chain.

The supply fell due to supply lines being destroyed during the pandemic in which governments did a number of other massively stupid things the likes of which I have never seen before and caused worse damage than I've ever seen before. I don't mind blaming the government for all that shite. It's their fault. They lied every step of the way and made every move to consolidate their control over everything even though they know how to run nothing.

No - the supply has been purposely tightened by the fed in an attempt to reign in spending and inflation - surely you've heard about interest rates hitting 8% over the course of the last year.

Because socialist justice warriors keep participating in capitalism with record levels of consumer spending, which is the driving force behind inflation.